This summer, people from across the country will come together to stop the first tar sands mine in the USA from ever breaking ground. Activists from Utah-based organizationsPeaceful Uprising, Canyon Country Rising Tide, Before it Starts, and more have joined forces to make sure this is a powerful and effective moment in the growing movement to stop extreme extraction.

The Canadian petroleum corporationUS Oil Sands, Incis targeting the remote state lands of eastern Utah to be the first tar sands project in the USA. Because political and regulatory objections are diminished in Utah, this project at PR Spring now has the green-light from the state to begin commercial operations.

If companies like US Oil Sands can prove that these types of dirty extraction operations are economically viable in Utah, then more tar sands andoil shaleprojects will spring up across the region. The legal efforts to stop this project have stalled construction, but time has run out. It is now time for people to come together and say NO Tar Sands in the US, NO Tar Sands anywhere!

SALT LAKE CITY – Protesters stormed an energy conference at the University of Utah on Tuesday, criticizing the university for holding a meeting that focused on tar sands development in the western United States.

Shouting at a crowd of potential investors and researchers, protesters with the Utah Tar Sands Resistance said a tar sands project in Utah would destroy the state, temporarily halting discussion over oil development projects in Utah.

“People will be coming from all over the country this summer to stop the U.S. Oil Sands mine from happening,” one protester said.

Utah’s bounty program is not only ineffective at reducing populations, it incentivizes fraud, resulting in scores of dead and dismembered coyotes in other states (photo from http://www.fieldandstream.com)

SALT LAKE CITY — More than 6,000 dead coyotes have been redeemed by hunters since Utah’s Division of Wildlife Resources launched its coyote bounty program last September.

The DWR hopes its ambitious plan will eliminate a significant portion of the state’s coyote population, which in turn will benefit the deer herds on which they prey. Officially known as the Predator Control Program, the incentive-based program pays hunters $50 for every coyote they kill.

Other states have implemented bounty programs over the years, but rarely on this scale. Even the New York Times has taken note of Utah’s Predator Control Program, calling it “one of the nation’s largest hunter-based efforts to manage predatory wildlife.”

Camilla Fox, executive director of Project Coyote, says that the Predator Control Program is “ecologically reckless, economically unjustifiable and ethically reprehensible.”

According to Fox, most government agencies acknowledge that coyote bounties are not only ineffective at reducing coyote populations, but are often counterproductive. She asserts that decades of research suggests that the systematic killing of coyotes increases reproduction, immigration and survival.

The following is a message from the group Peaceful Uprisings, who has coordinated much of the support for Tim DeChristopher who was arrested for disrupting a December 2008 oil and gas lease auction on public land inUtah, conducted by theBureau of Land Management. In July 2011, Judge Benson sentenced DeChristopher to two years in prison:

“On the evening of Friday, March 9th, Tim was summarily removed from the Minimum Security Camp where he has been held since September 2011, and moved into the FCI Herlong’s Special Housing Unit (SHU). Tim was informed by Lieutenant Weirich that he was being moved to the SHU (also referred to as “the hole”) because an unidentified Congressman had called from Washington DC, complaining of an email that Tim had sent to a friend. Tim was inquiring about the reported business practices of one of his contributors, threatening to return the money if their values no longer aligned with his own. For some absurd reason, this warrants an investigation. Tim will be held in isolated confinement until the investigation is concluded. There is no definite timeline for inmates being held in the SHU, some waiting months for the conclusion of an investigation.

In the SHU, Tim’s movements are severely restricted. In the past two weeks, he has been allowed out of his 8 X 10 cell (which he shares with another inmate) four times, each time for less than an hour. Tim is allowed one book in his cell, and four in his property locker. His writing means are restricted to a thin ink cartridge which makes correspondence extremely difficult. He canreceive mail from the outside, but has no other form of communication other than 15 minutes of phone calls per month Continue reading →

Last week, October 13, 2011, Walter Bond was sentenced to 87 months in prison for Animal Liberation Front arsons in Utah. This new sentencing will run consecutive with his time in Colorado, giving Walter a total of 12 years for his actions as the ALF Lone Wolf. In his final statement to the court, Bond had this to say:

“I’m here today because of the arsons I committed at the Tandy Leather Factory in Salt Lake City and the Tiburon restaurant in Sandy, Utah, which sells the incredibly cruel product foie gras. The U.S. attorney wants to give me the maximum sentence and beyond not because of my “crimes” but because I am unrepentant and outspoken. My intuition tells me that this court is not going to show me mercy because I become suddenly sorry. So instead of lying to the court in a feeble attempt to save myself, as I’m certain many do when they face their sentencing day, allow me instead to tell you what I am sorry for.

“I am sorry that when I was 19 years old I built two slaughterhouses that are still killing animals even now as I speak. I am sorry that Tandy Leather sells skin that has been ripped from the dead, and often live bodies of such animals as cows, ostriches, rabbits, snakes and pigs. I am sorry that the leather tanneries that supply Tandy Leather Factory poison the Earth with dangerous chemicals. I am sorry that the restaurant Tiburon profits from the force feeding of geese and ducks until their livers explode so that rich people can then use that as a pate for crackers and bread. I am sorry that they make a living from the dead bodies of wild and exotic animals. I am sorry that we live in a day and age where you can rape a child or beat a woman unconscious and receive less prison time than an animal liberation activist that attacked property instead of people.

“I am sorry that my brother was so desperate to get out of debt that he flew from Iowa to Colorado just to get me in a taped and monitored conversation for reward money. I am sorry I am biologically related to such a worthless little snitch. I am sorry that I waited so long to become an Animal Liberation Front operative. For all of these things I will always have some regret. But as far as the arsons at the Leather Factory and Tiburon, I have no remorse.

“I realize that the laws of the land favor a businesses ability to make a profit over an animals right to life. It also used to favor white business owners ability to profit from a black persons slavery. It also used to favor a husbands ability to viciously attack his wife and act on her as if she were an object. Those who broke the law and damaged property to stand against those oppressions were also called “terrorists” and “fanatics” in their time but that did not change the fact that society progressed and is still progressing along those lines.”

In a statement expressing her full support for her son, Bond’s mother, Mickie Coyote, had this to say about her son: “Walter Bond was born a warrior; he did not choose it because he found a worthy or righteous cause. A warrior is born with a fire inside and a need to right wrongs. He is born with a compassion and caring rooted so deeply that it is difficult to walk away from any sort of cruelty, whether it involves the people, the Animal Nations, the oceans and seas or the whole of Mother Earth and Father Sky.”

Inan earlier statementfrom Bond, he explained that his brother, who’s name is redacted from legal documents, had been working for the ATF since July 1st, 2010. If anyone has any further public information regarding Bond’s brother and the extent of his cooperation, please post it as a comment to the Earth First! Newsire’sInformant Trackingservice.

Updated information on sending letters or donations to Bond can be found at his support website:SupportWalter.org